[OSGeo-Discuss] Re: Sign the Hague declaration

[Fee, James]

Chris Puttick wrote:

>>  I'm sorry. In what way does requiring digital information to be in an 
>>  open standard force or exclude anyone? Be very sure those companies 
>>  desperately resisting the development and/or support of digital standards
>>  would provide support for government mandated ones really, really fast.

I thought we were talking about forcing governments to offer up information in a "open standard" format.  Are you saying that if a city has standardized on MS Office, it would be ok for them to continue to post .doc?  I got the feeling that folks are saying these cities need to abandon their software and move to other platforms someone arbitrarily says is open. 

>>  Let's take the example of mandating OpenDocument Format. There you are,
>>  either moderately well-off or using an illegal copy of Microsoft Office
>>  and suddenly you would be unable to read/write documents provided by 
>>  government bodies. 

What is the difference if OpenOffice supports a standard such as the old .doc format?  I see nothing in the MS argument that forces folks to use illegal copies of MS Office (heck use Google Docs).

>>  So sure, in the interim you might be forced to download one of several free
>>  (as in beer, some free as in libre) applications to access those documents.
>>  Terrible imposition, my apologies. This is somehow worse than being forced
>>  to either have second rate access because you have too old a copy of Microsoft
>>  Office, use an operating system for which Microsoft Office is not available or
>>  choose not to break the law by using illegal copies of software?

I fail to see the problem here.  Either you have a copy of MS Office, or you use OpenOffice already to view Word documents. 

This isn't about users of the information because there are several free (as in beer, some free as in libre) applications to access those "proprietary" documents.  This is about forcing governments to either buy software that produces "open" documents (that are readable by less software than the proprietary formats), or forcing them to pay consultants to install, train and debug "open" solutions. What a complete waste of everyone's time.  

Sharing of data happens because the system at large demands that it happens, not because a couple of folks sign some non-binding document on the internet.

--
James Fee, GISP
Associate
TEC Inc.
voice:  480.736.3976
data:  480.736.3677
internet:  jmfee at tecinc.com